


The Two Of Us

by Britpacker



Category: Yes Prime Minister
Genre: Closure, Episode Tag, Gen, They like each other really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23510290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: The PM summons his Cabinet Secretary for a quiet drink after work.  He’s never doubted Humphrey’s loyalty, or his competence.  So how can he rationalise the Halstead affair?
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	The Two Of Us

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always thought that, terrorist and hostage jokes aside, Jim and Humphrey are in an odd way really rather fond of each other. And I wanted to give poor old Humpy a bit of closure, too!

The private line trilled just as he was locking the last of the day’s top-secret business away in his personal safe – one key, always somewhere about his person. Startled, Sir Humphrey Appleby hesitated with his hand wavering an inch above the receiver, his broad brow furrowed. Very few civil servants – even amongst the Permanent Secretaries – would still be at their desks with Big Ben’s chimes fading from their six o’clock fanfare.

Fully expecting to hear the hesitant voice of their political master’s Principal Private Secretary he was startled almost into stuttering in reply to the Rt Hon. James Hacker’s own ebullient greeting. “Oh, good, you’re still at your post, Humphrey! I thought you might be.”

“Oh! As you are at yours, I gather, Prime Minister.”

Given the events of the past few days, the PM’s exuberance could only be a result of embarrassment: but for which of them the mortification might be the greater, Humphrey was yet unsure. “Is there something I can do for you, Prime Minister?” he hinted, keeping his tone light even as his grip on the receiver tightened painfully. A burst of heavy throat-clearing spattered like shrapnel against his ear.

“Well, you can come up to the study for a drink, if you have the time?”

_Ah_. The personal conversation: reserved until the ever-diligent Mr Woolley was safely off the premises. If nothing else, the Cabinet Secretary supposed he should be grateful for his political master’s uncharacteristic display of delicacy.

That didn’t stop a highly unusual fluttering of nerves in his belly as he strode through the deserted corridors from the Cabinet Office into Number Ten. The sight of the Prime Minister standing at his study door, brandishing a tumbler filled with deep and pleasantly smoky amber Scotch in place of the accustomed sherry, did nothing to abate them.

“Come in Humphrey, sit down.” Shepherding his guest toward the comfortable armchairs of the conversation area Hacker lowered himself cautiously into his usual seat, raising his own waiting glass in salute. “Did you happen to see this evening's opinion poll?”

“Alas no, Prime Minister.”

“Well, here it is.” Hacker waved a single sheet of paper as if it were the Union Flag. “Up six points, and all because of Benjy - and your good self, of course. Most imaginative of you.”

It was one of his own favourite insults. Cautious, Humphrey took a sip of his whisky, savouring its quality and giving himself time to discreetly assess the possibilities of a dozen potential replies. “You’re too kind, Prime Minister,” he demurred at length. “Particularly given the _unfortunate_ effect of that act of generosity on your planned spending cuts…”

“Sometimes one must act from the heart, even as Prime Minister.” Popularity dearly bought was, the Cabinet Secretary judged, more important than the cherished assault against military spending. “When one is faced with the prospect of an enquiry into the past conduct of a valued official – a close colleague - for instance.”

Most people wouldn’t have noticed the minimal tensing of his posture: but Jim Hacker congratulated himself that he was not _most people_ \- and anyway, almost four years’ professional intimacy had given him some small insight into the mannerisms of Whitehall’s most unflappable mandarin. “Indeed,” Sir Humphrey managed tightly. Hacker beamed.

“Now, we’re not going to open old wounds,” he promised, leaning forward until his chin was ominously close to his own knees. “I wanted to talk to you on a Lobby basis, so to speak. Off the record.”

“I _see_.”

Hacker coughed. Took a deep swig of his drink that started him spluttering at the potent liquor’s smouldering burn against his throat. “Perhaps you’d find this easier if I wasn’t here,” Humphrey heard himself murmur, a mocking reminder (to whom he wasn’t quite sure) of the conversation that had begun this nightmare. The Prime Minister waved it away, mopping his streaming eyes with the back of his free hand.

“Don’t be silly, Humphrey,” he sputtered, dropping his tumbler onto the coffee table with a clang that made the other man wince. “I just mean – damn it, we’ve known each other for years! Worked together on everything, at the DAA and here at Number Ten! When Geoffrey told me about the Halstead enquiry, I _couldn’t_ accept that you might be – well – _you_ know…”

“One of them?” Sir Humphrey supplied, lip curling on the phrase. Hacker’s head jerked repeatedly, giving him the look of a particularly agitated pigeon.

Under other circumstances, the comparison might have been rather amusing. 

“A spy. I mean, it just didn’t seem possible, did it? I really _was_ relieved – _extremely_ relieved – when Sir Arnold said – when he showed me _that_ … ahem…”

“Yes, well, thank you, Prime Minister.” It was Humphrey’s turn to do a disservice to fine liquor, gulping hard enough to choke. It should be a consolation that Arnold, of all people, knew what lay behind his apparently staggering level of incompetence: but nobody understood the wiles of a Cabinet Secretary quite like another member of that exclusive club. Sir Humphrey could feel his face heating despite all his thoroughly reasonable internal assurances.

“The trouble is… I can’t reconcile Halstead’s, erm, _testimony_ with the evidence of my own eyes.” Hacker was knotting his fingers, colouring above the collar and visibly fighting the urge to fidget. All in all, Humphrey realised with relief, the Prime Minister was by far the more uncomfortable man. “Damn it, Humphrey, we’ve had our ups and downs, but I _know_ you! The man who conducted the Halstead enquiry was a stranger.”

He paused, scowling into the depths of his glass. “You _couldn’t_ have been that stupid – could you?” he wailed, sufficiently distressed to reach out and claw at the other man’s knee. “I know you’re obstructive sometimes – difficult. But you’re not _stupid_ , Humphrey: and I don’t just mean academically, by the way. You _must_ have seen grounds to doubt Halstead’s innocence if you read the MI5 report!”

Startled into complete frankness, Sir Humphrey blurted his defence before he could calculate its impact. “Of course! Why do you think I never read it?”

Hacker’s eyes came out on stalks, and though his throat worked violently, for once no sound emerged. “But – but if you didn’t read it, how can you know…” he wailed at last.

For several moments the study was swathed in silence as Sir Humphrey contemplated the limited range of options – even by the standards of the Civil Service – the question presented him. “Prime Minister, can I remind you that this conversation never happened?” he said at last, feeling a great weight roll from his shoulders as the decision, right or wrong, was made. Hacker’s broad brow creased. “You _did_ say it was on a Lobby basis,” he added, by way of clarification.

“Ah!” Enlightened, Jim sat back, a conspirator’s grin twisting his lips. “That’s the Civil Service version, is it? _The conversation never happened?_ ”

“I think it best that I don’t incriminate myself any further.” Both men flinched from the particularly ill-chosen phrase – a sign, Humphrey admitted to himself, of the toll recent events had taken on his usual eloquent equanimity. “But – entirely off the record, and in a spirit of absolute and mutual deniability… Who is responsible for the co-ordination of the security services?”

“Well, you should know that, Humphrey! You’re Cabinet Secretary: it’s part of your job!”

The official arched a thick brow, still dark though the hair on his head was pure silver. “And if there were to be rumours in the press – questions about the reliability of a person in the higher echelons of those services…”

“I’d ask you to look into it, obvious…. Oh!”

How James Hacker had survived more than twenty years in politics without developing even the most rudimentary of poker-faces was, to Sir Humphrey Appleby, a far greater mystery than how the man could have become Prime Minister. From irritation, through dawning comprehension to abject, terrified recognition: every stage of the intellectual journey played out across his mobile features. “Oh,” he repeated faintly. “I _see_.”

“All MI5 files pass through the hands of the Cabinet Secretary, Prime Minister.” MI6’s too, but like the diligent public servant he was Sir Humphrey preferred not to mention those. “I think one might safely assume the file on Sir John Halstead was no exception.”

“One might indeed.” Comprehension of the basic facts might not necessarily be taken to imply a thorough understanding of them, as Hacker proceeded to prove. “In that case… Good grief! Humphrey, is it _possible_? One of your predecessors, a Russian spy!”

“Certainly not!” Setting aside his drink Humphrey sucked in a deep breath, head on one side as he contemplated the other man’s stricken expression. “But all of my predecessors enjoyed, as I do, unrestricted access to _all_ the security services’ top-secret documents. All of them, when called upon to establish a commission of enquiry, would first peruse the relevant files before deciding – before recommending to the Prime Minister of the day - the most appropriate course of action.”

“You mean, whether to hush it up?”

That even in the midst of the most confidential conversation he could make the worldly and elegant Cabinet Secretary wince and purse his lips like an affronted old maid lifted Jim Hacker’s flagging spirits. He chuckled, taking another deep draught from his glass. 

“One must always place the interests of the nation above all, Prime Minister,” Sir Humphrey reminded him stiffly. “But one must also be certain: is full disclosure of a potential scandal of greater benefit to the security of Great Britain than – perhaps – a prudent exercise of discretion among the highest authorities?”

“You mean a cover-up.”

“If you must be crude about it – yes.” If the gloves were off, Jim decided it was just as well this conversation had never happened. “As I’ve told you more than once, Prime Minister: one should never set up an enquiry until one knows what its findings will be. And the golden rule was, is and always will be: Don’t Lift Lids Off Cans Of Worms.”

“So: don’t tell people the head of MI5’s a Kremlin agent, even if he is.”

“Even if the evidence, known only to the highest authorities in the land, suggests he _might_ be,” Appleby corrected sternly. “Prime Minister, on my word of honour, I assure you: everything I did whilst conducting the Halstead Enquiry was done in accordance with the instructions I received on my appointment.”

“You were _told_ not to find any evidence?”

Sir Humphrey inclined his lofty head. 

“Even if it was staring you in the face?”

“When one’s back is turned, nothing can stare one in the face.”

Bernard, Hacker thought absently, would appreciate the pedantry. “So, in a sense, it _was_ collusion,” he said slowly. “Just not with the people I was afraid you might’ve been colluding with. And you _really_ didn’t suspect John Halstead was a spy?”

“Of course I _suspected_.” Politicians, as he so often told Woolley, had to be literal souls: their worlds being black and white, with or against, entirely delineated by the partisanship of their profession. “If I hadn’t, I would have read the MI5 report!”

“And if you’d read the MI5 report…” Hacker prompted

“I would hardly have been able to do the job I was given: of enabling one of your predecessors – who, you may remember, was subject to occasional, quite unsubstantiated, rumours of a private connection with the Kremlin himself – to stand up in the House and say: we’ve held a thorough enquiry, and found no evidence!”

The Prime Minister threw up his hands. “Humphrey, we’re going ‘round in circles!” he yelled. The Cabinet Secretary frowned.

“Isn’t that rather the point?” he wondered. Jim groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“Of what?” he demanded. “The Halstead Enquiry?”

The other man had the audacity to look scandalised. “Oh, no, Prime Minister! The point of that…”

“Was to avoid a scandal. Yes, I’ve got that thank you, Humphrey.” Suddenly the remnants of his whisky weren’t enough. Without asking, Hacker snatched both half-finished glasses and bolted to top them up, his hand shaking on the decanter’s stopper. “What I don’t understand is _why_.”

“Why – what?” 

“Why my predecessor – or yours for that matter… No, _wait_ a minute!”

“Ah.”

“It was Arnold, wasn’t it?” Like a small boy suddenly working out where the biscuits are being hidden Jim Hacker began to beam, rubbing his hands with a glee that froze into abject terror. “He – the Cabinet Secretary who told you to – who did read the MI5 report. It was Sir Arnold!”

Sir Humphrey bit his lip. “Prime Minister, do you _really_ want me to answer that question?” he muttered, for once unable to meet the other man’s eyes. 

“Why not?” Hacker challenged, thrusting the refilled tumbler under his nose. Gratefully Humphrey grabbed it, gulping its contents in a single stinging slug. “After all, this conversation didn’t happen - did it?”

“I sincerely hope not,” he managed, somewhat hoarser than usual as the alcohol burned his vocal cords. “And I can assure you that, should you _not_ have a conversation of this nature with him – Arnold will utterly deny everything I have… heard you say this evening.”

Rapidly rewinding through the last five minutes, Jim was forced to admit his wily companion hadn’t actually said anything: merely allowed the Prime Minister to blurt those uncomfortable truths he wished to have known. “And there’s nothing in writing, I suppose?” he said wearily.

Sir Humphrey had the audacity to smirk over the rim of his tumbler. “As Cabinet Secretary I can assure you, Prime Minister: one commits nothing to paper that one would not happily see on the front page of the next day’s _Times_. There’s probably still a minute on file in the Cabinet Office, instructing me to leave no stone unturned; to be no respecter of persons. I received my copy half an hour after being appointed to the enquiry.”

“I see. So: it’s your word against your predecessors, then.”

“Alas, it was ever thus.” Bristling with a confidence that was entirely feigned, Humphrey cocked his head and smiled at the titular master of his fate. “And to you must fall the vexatious duty of divination in the case. Do you accept my word, or the evidence of the files,” he added hastily as the familiar fog of confusion began to mist the blue eyes peering worriedly into his own.

For twenty-five seconds (and Sir Humphrey heard every one tick by on the grandfather clock across the room) James Hacker contemplated his response. _Would that he might be so considered in the House! Our lives would be much less problematic._

“I accept it.”

Humphrey Appleby, for once in life, was caught unawares; and it showed. “I – beg your pardon?” he tried, broad brow creasing.

Jim grinned, sticking out his hand. “I accept your word, Humphrey. Over any official document your predecessor might have seen fit to place on file. I think I know you well enough to know when I can trust you, and I trust you now.”

“I – thank you, Prime Minister.” Like a man in a trance Humphrey gripped the proffered limb, surprised by the strength of the fingers that pressed around his. “That… means a great deal to me.”

“Really?” Which of them was the more surprised by the admission Jim Hacker couldn’t be sure, but it touched him all the same. “And Humphrey… in a spirit of absolute confidentiality: what would _you_ do, if you were in Arnold’s position? Hush it up, or expose the truth?”

“Well, that would depend on you, Prime Minister.”

Hacker’s brows shot up all the way to his receding hairline. “Really?” he blurted. Sir Humphrey shrugged.

Elegantly, the other man noticed; the jerkiness of his earlier movements gone. As if the supreme self-assurance of the nation’s pre-eminent bureaucrat was restored. Perhaps he’d been a little premature in expressing his confidence, but it couldn’t be helped – not now. He was just a politician, after all. What training did they have in dissembling to match that ingrained by a lifetime in the Civil Service?

“Well, of course!” the ultimate civil servant exclaimed, all wide-eyed innocence. “As Cabinet Secretary, it’s my job to carry out the wishes of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.”

“It’s also your job to advise,” Jim reminded him – as if Humphrey, of all people, needed the ego-boost. “And I want to know what advice you’d give me if – for example – the press started to speculate that the current Director-General of MI5 might be… one of them.”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t happen with Geoffrey, Prime Minister,” Humphrey soothed quickly. Hacker frowned, and he raised his hands in immediate submission. “But if it were to come up… what would _you_ want?”

That was easy – wasn’t it? “The truth, obviously.”

The official arched a questioning eyebrow. “Even if that truth might be profoundly embarrassing to your Government?” he asked gently. “Even if it might – perhaps – cost votes?”

Every politician’s nightmare, and one that Humphrey Appleby knew tormented this particular leader, ever conscious of his doubtful popular mandate, more than most. “Yes. Well, no. I mean…”

As he had so often, the unelected administrator came to the rescue of the people’s representative. “Yes _and_ no?” he suggested, arch. “And in any case, my advice would, at the end of the day, taking all the relevant factors into account, be predicated on preserving the delicate balance between the stability of the Government and the defence of the Realm.”

Hacker frowned, turning the sentence over in his mind. “You mean, whether he was telling them something they couldn’t have found out some other way?” he suggested hopefully. Sir Humphrey favoured him with an indulgent smile.

“Precisely, Prime Minister!” he cried. “What with Burgess, Philby, Blake and Maclean – we didn’t know about Blunt at the time, and that _was_ embarrassing when it all came out – as well as Fuchs and the others, it could be argued that Halstead was only reinforcing what the Soviets already knew. The risk he posed to security was really very low: certainly not sufficient to risk undermining the Government with a full, independent enquiry.”

“And if Geoffrey…” No, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “That is, if there were questions raised…”

“Well, times have changed, Prime Minister.”

The silence that followed weighed heavy on his shoulders, and Hacker twitched involuntarily beneath it. “Is that it?” he demanded eventually. “Was that… an answer?”

Sir Humphrey’s brows knit. “Of course!” he exclaimed. With a sigh, Jim made a request he had never thought to hear himself offer. 

“Could you… expand on it at all?”

The smallest twitch of the lips implied the amusement Appleby would never express aloud. “Halstead and the others were idealists, Prime Minister. They believed in _causes_ ,” he explained, leaning forward with hands clasped. “In the ‘fifties it was still possible – apparently, if you went to Cambridge – to see Socialism as the future of Mankind. Philby, Burgess and the rest… they were ideologically motivated. Today’s spies are usually more interested in profit than politics: either that, or they’re being blackmailed. They’re much less dangerous, and far less difficult to detect.”

Hacker snorted. “Humphrey, it’s been _years_ since there was a major espionage scandal!” he yelled.

The Cabinet Secretary smiled indulgently. “Precisely my point!” he cried, rubbing his hands. “When we detect them early enough, we can _ease_ the bad eggs to the bottom of the basket, you see. That way the Russians gain enough low-level intelligence to keep them happy, and we have a useful channel of disinformation to the Kremlin.”

“Humphrey, are you telling me you _know_ there are Soviet agents in Whitehall?” Jim demanded, aghast.

The naivete of politicians, the Cabinet Secretary reflected, was really rather touching: but every time he saw it, he was reminded of why they were totally unfit to run the country. “As there are MI6 operatives inside the Kremlin: and CIA agents, naturally” he added hastily. “There are probably more than we know about of course, but as long as they’re not in positions of _real_ seniority…”

“Like Sir John Halstead?” Jim interjected; eyebrow arched. Sir Humphrey grimaced.

“ _Lessons have been learned_ is the phrase commonly used in the House, I believe,” he drawled, setting aside his glass as the other man rose, indicating the audience was at an end. “And even the Director General of MI5 isn’t in a position to betray _too_ much sensitive information. The system was designed to prevent any one individual posing a threat of _that_ magnitude.”

“Was it?”

“Of course!” Caught up in a preen, Sir Humphrey made the briefest of slips, hastily corrected. “Only one – only _two_ \- people have unrestricted access to _all_ the Top Secret documents.”

Hacker’s brow creased. “Those two people being…” he ventured hopefully.

“Well, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary, naturally.”

The furrows smoothed. Like a child praised for his homework James Hacker broke into a wide, innocent smile, his chest swelling with sudden pride. “Yes, well, obviously,” he agreed enthusiastically. “And we know that _we’re_ not spies, don’t we?”

“Indeed we do, Prime Minister.” 

“Well, I know _I’m_ not.”

It would, Humphrey restrained himself from observing, make very little difference if a politician, even the most senior in the land, _was_ attempting to pass secrets to his country’s enemies. The Civil Service existed to eliminate the risk of unqualified, unreliable ordinary people being exposed to the most sensitive information in the first place: and politicians were amongst the most ordinary people it had ever been the Cabinet Secretary’s misfortune to meet.

Still, some words of reassurance were clearly in order, and it was best, on this occasion at least, that they be delivered in a manner even a politician could understand. “On my word of honour, Prime Minister: I have never given information to any foreign power.”

“Oh, I know _that_ , Humphrey.” His shoulders heaving, Jim snatched his closest collaborator by the hand and pumped it energetically. “After all, you hardly ever give information to me! Nine o’clock as usual for our pre-Cabinet meeting tomorrow?”

To the surprise of both, Humphrey returned the vehement shake with interest, relief flooding his habitually controlled features as he allowed himself to be guided through the door. 

“Yes,” he said simply, “Prime Minister."


End file.
